


Too Rough For Women

by exbex



Series: A Man's World [2]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen, Gender or Sex Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:10:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex





	Too Rough For Women

Later, there’ll be a scar. The doctor had assured her it that will be barely visible, but it’ll be there. 

The thought makes Hutch want to grind her teeth together. It would be one thing if it had been sustained during actual police work. Instead, it’s the result of a too-familiar story; girl meets boy, boy decides he has to have girl, and if not him, then no one else.

Hutch bites down hard on her lower lip.

Starsky is sitting in the living room, ostensibly reading a book. Whether she left Hutch alone in the greenhouse because she’s giving Hutch the needed space or because she is radiating guilt is unclear. Probably both.

“It’s not your fault,” Starsky had said to her, in that no-nonsense tone that generally brooked no argument. But Hutch had retorted with her own “it’s not your fault either, so stop giving me that look!” and silence had settled upon them. Now, alone in the dark, Hutch entertains notions that it is her fault. 

She hadn’t even liked him, not really. But she had wanted an evening of no-strings sex, and she had read Dean as wanting the same thing. Well, she’d read him wrong. And later, even after his odd behavior, she hadn’t put two and two together when it had looked like someone had tried to break in to her apartment.  
Some detective she was.

The old conversation with her mother re-surfaced in her mind. “Karen, police work is too rough for women.” Hutch had replied with as much of a sneer as she dared, “Mother, the world is too rough for women.”

Well, here she was now, proving that she was right and her mother was wrong. After all, it was her police training that had saved her from becoming a victim, and it wasn’t some criminal she’d helped put away that had come after her, just a man she’d had the gall to flirt back with.

But then, here she was now, proving that the world, even now, was a hostile place toward women. One step forward, two steps back after all.

At least, when she finally drags herself out of the greenhouse and tells Starsky that she’s finally headed to bed, and when Starsky makes up a lie about being too tired to drive home and asks to crash on the couch, she’ll have the luxury of lying awake and crying in the dark, away from the world’s prying eyes.


End file.
